


The Holiest

by fabrega



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Feelings, Holy Water, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-11-02 12:50:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20752379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/pseuds/fabrega
Summary: "I wondered, you know," Aziraphale says. "You came to me and asked me for holy water, and then you disappeared for, what, eighty years?"





	The Holiest

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, as always, to the wonderful smarshtastic for the beta. ♥

"I wondered, you know," Aziraphale says, his face and voice sobering despite the alcohol he and Crowley have both been drinking. "You came to me and asked me for holy water, and then you disappeared for, what, eighty years?"

"Seventy-nine. But who's counting?" Crowley corrects him with a surprised look. He's sprawled across the bookshop couch that Aziraphale has, without realizing, come to think of as _Crowley's couch_. He's not sure when that happened--before, or after the Apocalypse?

"I wondered if perhaps you'd..." Aziraphale trails off, unable to put such a horrible idea into words. He'd had to be drunk to even bring this whole thing up in the first place.

"You called it a suicide pill." Crowley's voice is gentle, and that's almost worse. Aziraphale had hoped he would scoff, would call him a foolish, dramatic angel. Instead, his voice is soft and he doesn't immediately deny it, and it hits Aziraphale like a blow.

"What was I _supposed_ to think? You were the one always going on about how your lot would destroy you if they knew about--" Aziraphale swallows the word _us_, which feels low, somehow, after everything, "--our Arrangement." He looks away, not wanting to meet Crowley's eyes.

"So you thought that, given the choice between destroying myself and being destroyed by Head Office, I'd take--"

"The one that gave you agency."

Crowley doesn't say _oh, _**_angel_** out loud, but it's plain in the look he gives Aziraphale. "You didn't believe me when I said that wasn't what it was for."

"You're a demon! You _lie_. It's part of the job description."

Finally, Crowley scoffs. "I don't lie to _you_. When have I ever lied to you?"

"You've tempted me. I wasn't under any illusions that I was, you know." Aziraphale waves his hands, trying not to say the word _special_. "Outside the scope of your demonic responsibilities."

Crowley doesn't respond to this, just stares at him for a couple beats too long and then takes a long drink of wine, draining his glass.

This reminds Aziraphale: his own glass is empty. He gets up from his chair and moves to the table where the bottle is.

"Lucky for--well, for both of us, really, but also for you, I looked at the two terrible choices and opted for the third." Crowley comes up behind him, circles him in that way that he does, waiting for Aziraphale to be done with the bottle.

"Thank heavens," Aziraphale says. He means it, but also knows it's the kind of thing that gently irks Crowley, which he likes.

"You know heaven had nothing to do with it." Crowley purses his lips and waits until he's finished refilling his own glass to continue. "In those years, after you turned me down, I...slept, mostly. After a couple thousand years, you get tired."

Aziraphale gives him a harsh look, leans against the table instead of going back to his chair. "You're an occult being. You don't need to sleep."

"I don't..." Crowley hesitates, looks over at Aziraphale, looks away. "I don't think it was that kind of tired."

"Oh," Aziraphale says, like he understands. He's not certain he does.

The silence hangs between them.

Crowley leans against the table too, close in Aziraphale's space, their shoulders touching.

Aziraphale doesn't move away. "What was your plan?" he asks. "I mean, if you'd had the holy water and Head Office had found out about our Arrangement and it hadn't been Armageddon, what was your plan?"

Crowley gives a full-body shrug. "I don't suppose you'd believe me if I said that it was--"

"If you say 'ineffable', Crowley, I shall be very cross indeed." Aziraphale does his best to scowl. He's never been very good at being mad at Crowley, and he certainly hasn't gotten any better at it since nearly losing him (and everything else) in a very poorly-thought-out Apocalypse.

Crowley grins at him. It must not be a very good scowl. "My plan, such as it was, wasn't very complicated. You know most of it: use the holy water on whoever came after me, then get as far away from here as possible." He nudges into Aziraphale with his shoulder, causing both of them to sway a little. "Assuming your lot caught on around the same time, I'd have asked you to come with me."

"I might have said yes," Aziraphale says quietly, considering his glass.

"You wouldn't!" The force of Crowley's disbelief lights up his face.

"No," Aziraphale concedes, "But I probably should have. Hard to think that you might need to leave if you think you're only going to get a metaphorical slap on the wrist."

"A lot easier to think about when you know the alternative is hellfire," Crowley says. Aziraphale isn't sure which of them he means.

They stand in silence again, but it feels contemplative, comfortable. Aziraphale lets himself tip slightly, so that he's definitely leaning against Crowley. Crowley feels solid, reassuring.

Aziraphale thinks about those eighty years, when Crowley wasn't there. He thinks about how unstable he'd felt, in a way that the quickly-changing world couldn't fully explain. He thinks about the night, thirty-odd years into those eighty years, when he realized that if Crowley _did_ get his hands on some holy water and _did_ go through with the unthinkable, that his own Head Office would probably give him credit for it, the destruction of his wily nemesis through holy means. He'd needed to have a bit of a lie-down himself, after that.

In retrospect, refusing to call the feeling 'grief' didn't mean that he wasn't grieving.

"I'm glad you're still here," he says aloud. He leans a little more deliberately against Crowley, tipping his head to let it rest on Crowley's shoulder.

Between them, Crowley takes his hand. "Me too," he says softly. He smiles down at Aziraphale, and Aziraphale can't help but smile back.


End file.
